tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739Tue, 06 Mar 2018 08:01:44 +0000featurebugfixfirst-find-all-the-lawyersrefinementWordle Bloghttp://blog.wordle.net/noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)Blogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-3950882916214764860Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:38:00 +00002012-12-18T10:38:15.284-05:00Text is Beautiful!<p>There's a new web site that provides visualizations to give you insight into your text: <a href="http://textisbeautiful.net/">Text is Beautiful</a>. It has a Wordle-like word cloud, plus two other visualizations that make explicit the affinities between words in your source material.
<p>It's a beautiful site, and I highly recommend it.http://blog.wordle.net/2012/12/text-is-beautiful.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-7256778175098475234Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:50:00 +00002011-07-04T13:07:18.416-04:00Հայաստան!For whatever reason, a spate of requests have recently come in for Armenian language support. I'm happy to report that I've deployed a new build of Wordle with Mark Williamson's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_Unicode_typefaces#MPH_2B_Damase">MPH 2B Damase</a> font built-in. It's a very high-quality font, with support for many Unicode scripts. It's not particularly stylish or fanciful, but at least Armenian-literate folk can now enjoy the use of Wordle.
<p>I hope that my Armenian-literate users will let me know if anything doesn't work as expected.
<p>Oh, and there's now support for カタカナ and ひらがな, through the Chrysanthi Unicode font.http://blog.wordle.net/2011/07/blog-post.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-4201337436757351249Mon, 30 May 2011 18:56:00 +00002011-05-30T15:02:53.993-04:00WordFotoA couple of Swedish developers have released an iPhone/iPod/iPad app called <a href="http://www.wordfoto.com/">WordFoto</a>, which takes any image as input and spits out that image, but composed of words. Having dabbled with such an algorithm myself, I'm very impressed with the fact that theirs works essentially instantaneously. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=wordfoto&amp;s=int&amp;z=e">People are starting to add it to their personal toolkit of image-creation techniques.</a> Go play with it.
<p>* Full disclosure: they gave me a free copy of of their $1.99 app. I believe that this blog post is worth somewhat less than that, so I probably still owe them some cheese and crackers, or maybe a bag of taffy or something.http://blog.wordle.net/2011/05/wordfoto.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-736581534923284080Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:26:00 +00002010-08-31T10:35:40.228-04:00WordCram: An open-source Wordle-like libraryIf you're a programmer, and you want to create Wordle-like effects in your own software, then you couldn't do much better than to start with <a href="http://wordcram.wordpress.com/">WordCram</a>. WordCram is an excellent new open-source project, designed to work as an extension library for the <a href="http://processing.org/">Processing</a> programming environment. I like the way it's designed. I like how simple it is to use. I <b>love</b> that the source is freely available, so that you can study it, learn from it, and improve it. Please go check it out, and give <a href="http://invisibleblocks.wordpress.com/">the author</a> some love.http://blog.wordle.net/2010/08/wordcram-open-source-wordle-like.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-5162068035084293469Fri, 21 May 2010 20:34:00 +00002010-05-22T22:57:55.919-04:00Wordle as "Beautiful Visualization"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000617"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 70px; height: 91px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eR8lFb3q2YQ/S_bxAAgCtiI/AAAAAAAACHc/fCSGpd0TWqw/s400/bvcover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473827379552106018" border="0" /></a>
O'Reilly has a nifty <a href="http://search.oreilly.com/?i=1&amp;q=title%3Abeautiful&amp;t1=Books&amp;u1=q&amp;u2=t1&amp;facet=ContentType&amp;act=fc_contenttype_Books">series of books on "beauty" in technology</a>. Editor Julie Steele asked me to contribute a chapter about Wordle to the book on <a href="http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920000617/">Beautiful Visualization</a>. If you're a visualization fanatic, then you may want to go buy a copy (for which all royalties go to <a href="http://architectureforhumanity.org/">Architecture for Humanity</a>). However, if you're merely curious about how Wordle came to be, or how it works, you might enjoy this <a href="http://static.mrfeinberg.com/bv_ch03.pdf">PDF of Beautiful Visualization, Chapter 3: Wordle</a>.http://blog.wordle.net/2010/05/wordle-as-beautiful-visualization.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-8044464478252646029Thu, 06 May 2010 15:43:00 +00002010-05-06T11:44:58.898-04:00Berylium is BackDue to popular demand, I've put Berylium back. Who knew it had such a following?http://blog.wordle.net/2010/05/berylium-is-back.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-3839691488723621051Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:46:00 +00002010-04-07T11:54:55.016-04:00Tagxedo is amazing<a href="http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html">Tagxedo</a><div>
</div><div>Not so much an "alternative" to Wordle as much as "Wordle - the next generation". It's a leap forward both in the layout algorithms (which permit sophisticated shape-filling) and the design of the tweaking interface. It's very unusual to find a programmer who has both the sophisticated algorithmic know-how and the keen sense of user-centered design that <a href="http://www.tagxedo.com/about.html">Hardy Leung</a> exhibits. He clearly has had an eye on the various warts in Wordle, and has addressed them with energy and determination. I wish him and his project(s) well. Go check it out!</div>http://blog.wordle.net/2010/04/tagxedo-is-amazing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-1566951473853761937Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:48:00 +00002010-04-01T22:50:11.088-04:00Google News<p>On February 19<sup>th</sup>, I amicably parted ways with <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/" target="_blank">IBM Research</a>, where I had spent over 6 years fiercely manning a very small tiller on a very large ship.</p><p>For the 4 weeks following, I joyfully hacked on <a title="Ben Fry" href="http://benfry.com/" target="_blank">Ben Fry</a>’s and <a title="Casey Reas" href="http://reas.com/" target="_blank">Casey Reas</a>’s <a title="The Processing Development Environment" href="http://processing.org/" target="_blank">Processing</a> project. I spent a couple of those weeks trying to stabilize the tooling around their nascent support for the <a href="http://www.androphones.com/" target="_blank">Android</a> mobile platform, and then dove into some of the guts of the language itself, adding support for most of Java 5’s new features. Finally, I fixed all open bugs around the “auto formatter”, which is supposed to neaten up your rat’s nest of code, but had been mangling and eating it under certain circumstances. It was an exhilarating month, which tells you exactly how much of a geek I am. To be paid for it was almost unbearably wonderful.</p>I spent a lot of time with my family, and a lot of time at various public libraries. Thank you <a href="http://www.lincolnpl.org/" target="_blank">Lincoln</a> and <a href="http://www.robbinslibrary.org/" target="_blank">Arlington</a>, for your beautiful libraries, your kind librarians, and your free WiFi.
<p>This past Monday, March 29<sup>th</sup>, I showed up at <a href="http://maps.google.com/?q=Google%20Cambridge@42.362809,-71.087422&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">5 Cambridge Center</a> for my first day as a Noogler, which is what new Google employees are officially called. I’m proud to say that I’ve joined the team behind the amazing <a href="http://books.google.com/" target="_blank">Google books</a>.</p>Right now, I’ve got my lips to the fire hose. There’s no good way for me to express to you how complex Google’s engineering culture is, having its own succinct and expressive jargon, a custom tool set, and a Jovian scale. As I learn to crawl, my contributions there will be unglamorous—incremental improvements to this or that web page on a mobile device; a widget or two. But I hope, over time, to make some significant mark, and to be able to tell you about it with pride. But first I’ve got to learn C++, <a title="Bjarne Stroustrup" href="http://www2.research.att.com/%7Ebs/bs_faq.html#really-say-that" target="_blank">the language in which</a> it’s “harder [to shoot yourself in the foot], but when you do, it blows your whole leg off.”
<p>Wordle will continue to be freely available. I have no plans to change anything about it (although I have been experimenting with some new palettes during those few free minutes between making school lunches and collapsing in bed).</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2010/04/google-news.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-1242646657394958351Fri, 02 Apr 2010 01:37:00 +00002010-04-01T21:42:35.743-04:00TimecloudA beautiful and exceedingly clever visualization of how word frequencies change over time in some corpus. <a href="http://us.linkfluence.net/blog/2009/10/21/introducing-timecloud-dynamic-word-clouds-beta/" target="_blank">Timecloud</a>. Brilliant.
(Via an email from Rob James)http://blog.wordle.net/2010/04/beautiful-and-exceedingly-clever.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-562798340749459242Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:44:00 +00002010-03-10T08:59:33.994-05:00This "Sex" Which Is Not One<p>I've received a bunch of notes in response to <a href="http://www.wordle.net/faq#sexsmith">my recent FAQ entry on the name of the Sexsmith font</a>. They've mostly been favorable, but tonight I received this:
<blockquote><p>Thank you for your response about the "Sexsmith" font title. While I appreciate your quick wit and understand your frustration, my seven year old students (and their moms and dads) probably won't appreciate it as much. So while I love to play on your site, I am unable to provide my young friends with an opportunity to be technology-forward in their learning. It is unfortunate that one thing prohibits that, but it also sucks that I could get fired for allowing my kids to play with a site that has "Sex" anywhere on it, no matter the context.
<p>Thanks for being so understanding,
<br>[Name Withheld]</blockquote><p>I have to admit that on this point I am not "understanding". It seems completely insane to me, and insane in a characteristically American way. In no other country could there be such a force-field of anxiety around the juxtaposition of three letters. In this case it's <i>particularly</i> bizarre, given that the word "Sexsmith" has nothing whatsoever to do with "sex". It has to do with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seax">seaxes</a>. And while I'd love to stop using "sex" as a weapon, I'm afraid I can't buck history (or philology) on this one.
<p>But, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that we're actually talking about, you know, <i>it</i>, or matters related to <i>it</i>. Out of curiosity, in one of these benighted school districts where evolution is "just a theory" and Ptolemaic cosmology is on equal footing with Copernican, what word are you permitted to use when you need to denote that property of a person that is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome? Do you call it "gender"? What kind of reproduction is practiced by most multicellular lifeforms on Earth? Genderual?
<p>For that matter, what instrument did Christopher Columbus use to determine his latitude? Trick question! He used a quadrant, not a gendertant.
<p>I suppose we should all be grateful that I chose not to use <a href="http://www.dafont.com/fuck-you-las-vegas.font">this font</a>; it would be a lot harder to fully justify.http://blog.wordle.net/2010/03/this-sex-which-is-not-one.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-2678629774464529317Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:01:00 +00002010-03-01T09:32:32.405-05:00first-find-all-the-lawyersWhat happened?<p>On Saturday evening, I received an email concerning a perceived trademark infringement on the part of the Wordle web site. In the spirit of "better safe than sorry", I took the site down right away.</p><p>Because of the unbelievable ruckus that ensued <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=wordle">on Twitter</a> and <a href="http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=wordle+trademark&amp;btnG=Search+Blogs">in the blogosphere</a>—even the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/28/AR2010022801376.html">WaPo</a> picked up <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/28/wordle-in-trademark-trouble-seeks-legal-advice/">TechCrunch's story</a>—I quickly found myself in possession of meaningful information and legal counsel.</p><p>Unfortunately, I can't give you any details about exactly what the facts are, and what I'm doing about them. I <i>can</i> tell you that a very kind, warm, and competent IP lawyer is helping me.</p><p>In a way, I feel like I've won my own little version of the <a href="https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/default.aspx">DARPA Network Challenge</a>. Instead of finding 10 red balloons, I found a handful of lawyers (and ex-lawyers, of whom there seem to be many). Can I get DARPA to write me a check for $40K? There have got to be defense applications of Wordle, right?</p><p>I cordially thank the many people who wrote to me offering support, and who used various social media to discuss this spot of bother.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2010/03/what-happened.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-7601366658051879312Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:35:00 +00002010-01-21T15:42:39.662-05:00Nothing personal.I've recently posted personal opinions and natterings here, which reduces the value of this blog as a source of Wordle-related news and notes. I'm not going to do that anymore. Those of you who are interested in my personal doings, thoughts, and aesthetic leanings are warmly invited to follow me at <a href="http://pheinberg.tumblr.com/">http://pheinberg.tumblr.com/</a> and as <a href="http://twitter.com/pheinberg">@pheinberg</a> on twitter.http://blog.wordle.net/2010/01/nothing-personal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-1925819025504209168Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:10:00 +00002009-11-04T11:27:49.771-05:00<p>This has nothing to with Wordle, but I don't know where else to say this:</p><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eR8lFb3q2YQ/SvGZef71EmI/AAAAAAAABxY/U8vKQ_GUa_A/s320/gayflag.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400266177441501794" border="0" /><p>I reject and abhor those who would <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1934432,00.html?iid=tsmodule">deprive my fellow citizens of their equal status under the law</a>. These people couch their bigotry and fear in carefully crafted bullshit.</p><p>
It's time, once again, for the courts to stand for justice, and to strike down these outrageous laws, which deprive people of their rights.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/11/this-has-nothing-to-with-wordle-but-i.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-1016680780188379000Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:21:00 +00002009-09-21T10:22:19.008-04:00Tagul<p>Many folks have asked for a Wordle that fits into a shape. Others have asked for &ldquo;clickable&rdquo; Wordles, which could be used for navigation. I&rsquo;m happy to say that someone (who identifies himself only as &ldquo;Alex&rdquo;) has created a service that meets both of those needs. I&rsquo;m not endorsing his site; I&rsquo;m just letting folks know about it.</p>
<p>Tagul: <a href="http://tagul.com/">http://tagul.com/</a></p>
<p>It requires signing up with either a new Tagul account, or via some OpenID provider, so I can&rsquo;t provide a demo here. As you might have guessed from the way Wordle works, I don&rsquo;t like signing up for toys.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/09/tagul.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-2649609261271775016Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:06:00 +00002009-08-21T13:24:52.372-04:00How to make Wordle safe for classroom use.<p>A couple of days ago, I got an email from Becky Foellmer, of Lakeview Jr. High in Downers Grove, IL. She suggested:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="line-height:140%">Since it is very easy to set most networks to block specific sites, blocking the gallery at <a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery">http://www.wordle.net/gallery</a> is a simple process. That eliminates the concern of students seeing inappropriate content there. Then [&hellip;] instead of having the latest examples showing on your homepage (which could easily contain inappropriate content), you could simply put up several samples of your choosing that are appropriate. This, I believe, would allow those of us in the field of education to much more comfortably utilize your site within our classrooms.</p></blockquote>
<p>This seemed to me to strike an excellent balance, in that it&rsquo;s something I actually have time to get done, and it&rsquo;s practical for educators, I hope. Therefore, I&rsquo;m happy to announce that from now on, the Wordle front page will never feature images or links that are inappropriate for classroom use. It's now possible to configure an institution's "site-blocking" software to keep Wordle safe for classroom use. </p>
<p>Simply have your networking administrator block the following base URLs<sup><a href="#base">1</a></sup>: </p>
<ul>
<li>http://www.wordle.net/gallery</li>
<li>http://www.wordle.net/next</li>
<li>http://www.wordle.net/random</li></ul>
<p>and your users will not&nbsp;see anything that's not safe for classrooms. You&rsquo;ll still be able to save your work, bookmark your individual Wordle creations, print them out, and share the URLs of saved Wordles with each other and with families.</p>
<p>Please let me know whether this works out for you in your school or other institution.</p><a name="base"></a>
<p style="FONT-SIZE: 80%"><sup>1</sup>By "base URL" I mean: "block all URLs that begin with the given text", and not merely those literal URLs.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/08/how-to-make-wordle-safe-for-classroom.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-4618398343200455814Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:36:00 +00002009-06-10T12:44:47.542-04:00Aloha, Kaimuki<p>I was delighted to see that Honolulu's <a href="http://www.librarieshawaii.org/locations/oahu/kaimuki.htm">Kaimuki Public Library</a> is using Wordle as the basis for a weekly contest. What I particularly like is that nobody felt it necessary to explain what a Wordle is.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090609/GETPUBLISHED/906080355">Be Creative: Play Wordle</a></p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/06/aloha-kaimuki.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-7424991812238374293Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:07:00 +00002009-06-09T22:13:53.600-04:00My 5 Words of Fame<p>As you may know, Wordle won both the Webby and the People's Voice Webby for <a href="http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=13#best_typography">Best Use of Typography</a> at this year's Webby awards. In order to maximize their income from entrance fees and winner's tickets (many hundreds of dollars), they have an inordinate quantity of categories. They make a virtue of their scammy excesses by strictly limiting winners' speeches to 5 words.</p>
<p>Imagine my chagrin when the <i>very first winner</i> went up on stage and recited the 5-word address I'd planned.</p>
<p>This is the best I could do under time pressure. I'm not sure whether I ought to have had more to drink, or less.</p>
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hu-2RMZ4ETc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hu-2RMZ4ETc&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/06/my-5-words-of-fame.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-6713244869348573748Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:26:00 +00002009-02-21T22:28:12.199-05:00Word Vader<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdf/3298367999/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3315/3298367999_dd9fa33119_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdf/3298367999/">Word Vader</a></span></div>I was putting my son to bed, and I said, "I feel like writing a computer program, but I don't have any ideas," and he said, "make something that draws Star Wars characters with words," and I had most of the code for that kind of thing lying around, and here it is.<br clear="all" />http://blog.wordle.net/2009/02/word-vader.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-3268991882456977630Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:14:00 +00002009-02-02T20:14:06.990-05:00Wordles and the Inaugural Addresses<p>In the days after the inauguration of #44, I saw many, many blog posts and newspaper stories featuring Wordles of the inaugural address. In my opinion, while they are lovely enough, they don&rsquo;t really address what makes one person&rsquo;s words distinctive. To see if I could do any better, I spent a couple of days making <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/inaugurals/" target="_blank">Comparisons of Inaugural Addresses</a>. </p>
<p><font color="#0000ff"><a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/inaugurals/"><img alt="thumbnail of lLincoln's 2nd inaugural" src="http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/inaugurals/images/20lincoln2-vs-five-t.jpg" border="0" /></font></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/02/wordles-and-inaugural-addresses.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-5074921872057076203Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:24:00 +00002009-01-20T23:31:52.323-05:00Stimulus.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eR8lFb3q2YQ/SXaj0qA7gAI/AAAAAAAABO0/KSIKMnE1kxs/s1600-h/wordle-inauguration.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 124px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eR8lFb3q2YQ/SXaj0qA7gAI/AAAAAAAABO0/KSIKMnE1kxs/s400/wordle-inauguration.png" alt="Graph of Wordle usage on inaguration day" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293598537047310338" border="0" /></a>
<p>In addition restoring the rule of law and implicitly repudiating torture, preemptive war, and being stupid on government property, Barack Obama has also driven an amazing amount of traffic to Wordle today.</p>
<p>
Thanks, <a href="http://skreened.com/product-image/w250h350f2ss1ab24/hzxkinrzamtjbutpmrpo/barack-obama-t-shirts-obama-44th-president-t-shirt.png">#44</a>.
</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2009/01/stimulus.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-2890487821364977940Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:24:00 +00002008-12-23T14:24:26.134-05:00The Wordle-Users Google Group is Dead<p>Long live the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/wordleusers/topics" target="_blank">WordleUsers</a> Google Group.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Google Groups administration interface does not permit you to delete any more than one post at a time, and there were hundreds of spam messages from before the moment when I turned on moderation. I have blown away the existing archive, which was too polluted by spam to be useful, and created a new group.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2008/12/wordle-users-google-group-is-dead.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-8169175767491052042Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:56:00 +00002008-12-13T16:06:29.821-05:00For Wordle users in the educational field<p>I commend to you: <a href="http://www.concentrate.org.uk/index.php?page=115" target="_blank">mugs of authority</a>. Excellent stocking-stuffer for yourself or for the harried middle-school teacher in your household.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.concentrate.org.uk/images/cups-office1.gif" border="0" /></p>
<p><a href="http://www.neatorama.com/2008/12/13/mugs-of-authority/" target="_blank">via</a></p>http://blog.wordle.net/2008/12/for-wordle-users-in-educational-field.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-237383368064447429Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:14:00 +00002008-12-08T11:17:30.052-05:00Good Data<p>Good data makes all the difference in a visualization. I snarfed the <a href="http://xwordinfo.com/Popular.aspx" target="_blank">list of the most common New York Times crossword puzzle answers</a>, massaged the data into a form that <a title="for power users" href="http://www.wordle.net/advanced" target="_blank">Wordle Advanced</a> would understand, et voila:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/370146/Most_Common_Crossword_Answers"
title="Wordle: Most Common Crossword Answers"><img
src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/370146/Most_Common_Crossword_Answers"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"></a></p>http://blog.wordle.net/2008/12/good-data.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-8459593958617569193Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:03:00 +00002008-10-27T10:03:26.993-04:00A Wordle Lesson Plan<p>Many teachers have written to me about their use of Wordle in the classroom. Miss <a href="http://www.misso.pagemagnet.co.uk/" target="_blank">Fran O&rsquo;Leary</a>, of the <a href="http://www.redruth.cornwall.sch.uk/curriculum/english/" target="_blank">English &amp; Media Studies</a> department of <a href="http://www.redruth.cornwall.sch.uk/" target="_blank">Redruth School</a>, UK, has kindly given me her permission to share with you her lively account of one such use. I quote:</p>
<blockquote>
<div><font face="Tahoma" size="2">You asked me, if I remembered,&nbsp;to feed back on my use of Wordle for spelling and vocabulary. I'd love to share the success,&nbsp;so here we go.</font></div>
<ul>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>First time:</strong> hmmm, not sure that the students really knew what to make of it. They did OK, but no better than you would imagine.</font></li>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>Second time:</strong> I changed the test slightly. I told them to take the sheet home and use it in any way they wanted to 'learn the words'. I then tested their knowledge with questions such as:"only one of these words was longer than 9 letters, which one was it?", "choose any word you like, but it must be spelled 100% correctly", "which word has the most vowels?" The results were still OK, but nothing amazing.</font></li>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>Third time:</strong> they asked if it would be like the second one; I said yes but without the 100% spelling thing. They blew me away with the test results. OK, not everyone answered all ten questions, but of the questions answered there were only 4 spelling mistakes; some incorrect answers, but they had spelled the chosen words correctly anyway.</font></li>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>Fourth time:</strong> similar positive result.</font></li>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>Fifth time:</strong> again, superb on the spelling front and yet I had long stopped asking them to 'spell'. Plus, this time the last of the hardcore "I ain't doing it" students had a go and surprised us both.</font></li>
<li><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><strong>And so on...</strong></font></li></ul>
<div><font face="Tahoma" size="2">I'm still puzzling as to the exact reasons&nbsp;why this method has been so successful in engaging students with new vocabulary, but&nbsp;I've come to the conclusion that it's a combination of: the vocabulary sheet allowing more interaction through physical turning and handling; colours allowing associations or categories to be formed; and testing for understanding and exploration rather than technical accuracy.&nbsp;Then again, it could just be as simple as the explanation given by one of the girls "it's kinda pretty and it's different. You like to use things like that, don't ya?"</font></div></blockquote>http://blog.wordle.net/2008/10/wordle-lesson-plan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8409409491839720739.post-2154122884787853087Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:57:00 +00002008-10-28T17:00:02.111-04:00Wordle Advanced<p>Many users have asked for a way to use Wordle as sort of an output device for more sophisticated text analyses, so I give you <a href="http://www.wordle.net/advanced">Wordle Advanced</a>.</p>
<p>There you'll find a couple of forms for pasting your word-weight data. One form also expects colors, as hex numbers. So now, if you've done, say, a Dunning log-likelihood analysis of some text versus a normative corpus, you can get a Wordle of the result, and you could even assign your own colors based on parts of speech, or relative frequency within the source document, what have you.</p><p>Use in good health.</p>http://blog.wordle.net/2008/10/wordle-advanced.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Feinberg)3